Big school and nobody to hang out with

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions. I'll pass them along. And thanks to everyone who pushed back on the mean people who take pleasure in lobbing insults at anonymous strangers.

Are you going to encourage her to rush sororities? That's the best advice in the thread. The mid tier ones are nothing like the stereotypes and movies.

[Anonymous]

Everyone blossoms at different times. Don’t force her to become more assertive when she is not ready. If the SLAC would take her back, just move. I have one at a SLAC and another at a big one and I can tell with you 100% certainty that you don’t miss anything at SLAC and instead, the students there are more caring and kind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP. support exists your niece is either ignoring it or you don’t know what you’re talking about. You sound like an extreme busybody, OP. Why are you so invested in the friendships of your niece? Who is telling you she only had two friends in HS? Is she sharing these things and asking for help? If so, I guarantee there is an RA or an RD who has been arranging activities people can go to together. She can talk to her RA to find a schedule, etc. At the very least, the RA could invite her along and introduce her to people… but your niece has to talk and participate to make friends. They don’t magically happen.

Yes, she is in a big school. Not everyone class is over 100 people. She has at least 1-2 small classes- an English class or science lab or something. She also can make acquaintances with people in class. Sit near people that look nice. Ask them questions, share notes. On Thursday or Friday ask what they are doing this weekend. Say “I hadn’t heard of that event… maybe I’ll check it out.” Then show up.

I am VERY introverted but I still met the people on my hall freshman year and we hung out some. There are hall/building meetings or some such type of things. People were knocking on doors, etc. She just has to respond to opportunities.

DP. Why can't you just be helpful? I do not understand why you feel the need to interrogate and criticize the OP. Just start at paragraph 2 or move on.

Why do people in this forum feel the need to pile on criticism and judgment when someone shares a concern or asks for help?

This is a huge complaint of mine, as well. It's pretty revolting and continues to happen over, and over, and over. Must be a huge concentration of awful people on here.

Could be. Or a few vociferous posters. Whoever they are, they love suck the air out of the room!

Glad you got some useful advice, OP. All the best to your niece!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:"Hang out with" is a subjective term. She's surrounded by people. She will never, ever be in this (imo fortunate) circumstance - surrounded by 30,000 of her peers the same age.

This is why you don’t send passive kids or frankly any teen you really care about to a gigantic university for undergrad. THIS is why families pay a premium for private college. Nobody there cares about her. Nobody there is looking out for her. Nobody even notices if she never leaves her room and skips classes for weeks. And if God forbid something bad happens to her, the university machine will cover it up.

The only thing that gets anyone’s attention there is the check for tuition and room and board not clearing.

This is utterly bizarre. Of course you don't send a painfully shy or extremely introverted person to a large school, if there is a history of social difficulties - as there seems to be with the girl in question. But most kids do great at large schools. They often find it refreshing to be among a lot of people, where they can reinvent themselves or find "their people" - that doesn't often happen at small schools. It sounds very much like you're projecting your own (or your kids') experiences. Large schools can be a TON of fun and provide numerous opportunities that small schools would never be able to. Both have their pros and cons - but your rant against large schools is just absurd.

I don’t understand the obsession with the kids from her high school in a school of 30,000. If she doesn’t have. A good history with them, there are 29,990 other kids to become friends with.

+1

OP: Why not name the school with 30,000 students that "your niece" attends ?

Because your antagonistic post will convince her that you can help with university specific resources? You are a piece of work. Quit trolling.

You are afraid of receiving help with specific university resources ????

I think that we all know who the troll is.

I'm not OP. Reread what I wrote. No one would want
to confide anything to someone who sounds that snotty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.

This is my fear about DS - but he’s determined to ED to the state flagship. I think however it’s all about the luck of who is your roommate and who do you meet in your dorm, right ?

You have to step out and seek out community if you aren't lucky in clicking well right away with your roommate/hallmates. If possible, live in an living-learning community, although that's no guarantee. My son's at a 30K+ college and had always been pretty outgoing and made friends easily but even he found it difficult and he did think the covid senior year had hurt his social skills. He was in an LLC but didn't really engage with what they offered. But, for him, a big factor was a couple close friends went to the same school and he really leaned on those friends. I think if he hadn't had those, the need for friends would have given him more of a push to engage and he'd have gotten over the discomfort. He's in his 2nd year and still his core friend group is his high school friends.

We didn't really talk with him about this stuff before he went away because it had never been an issue. And he said when home at xmas and reflecting on the year so far that he expected academics to be hard and social stuff to be easy but it was completely the opposite. If I had an introverted/anxious kid, I would definitely talk with them before moving about strategies, that you should expect it to take time, review the website to ID some groups to join. Encourage daily/weekly goals around pushing yourself to engage. It takes work.

This^^^ For first time, I had to map out social goals/expectations with my introverted kid for start of freshman year. They are 3K miles from home and knew nobody. Got lucky that their roommate is nice. But roommate hangs out with the one friend they know from home, so my kid hangs with them and is slowly building more groups of friends. But I'm glad my kid doesn't have anyone from home to cling to. Because while they started out anxious, they have started making more friends, while the roommate is still hanging mostly with the friend from home.

My DS is a freshman at University of Florida and he has no issues with making friends and dating on the first day. He brought his guitar to the dorm and played Justin Beiber's off my face; immediately he started attracting females. It is not that difficult.

It's nice that it was not difficult for him. That does not negate the experience of many people who do find it difficult.

Well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.

This is my fear about DS - but he’s determined to ED to the state flagship. I think however it’s all about the luck of who is your roommate and who do you meet in your dorm, right ?

You have to step out and seek out community if you aren't lucky in clicking well right away with your roommate/hallmates. If possible, live in an living-learning community, although that's no guarantee. My son's at a 30K+ college and had always been pretty outgoing and made friends easily but even he found it difficult and he did think the covid senior year had hurt his social skills. He was in an LLC but didn't really engage with what they offered. But, for him, a big factor was a couple close friends went to the same school and he really leaned on those friends. I think if he hadn't had those, the need for friends would have given him more of a push to engage and he'd have gotten over the discomfort. He's in his 2nd year and still his core friend group is his high school friends.

We didn't really talk with him about this stuff before he went away because it had never been an issue. And he said when home at xmas and reflecting on the year so far that he expected academics to be hard and social stuff to be easy but it was completely the opposite. If I had an introverted/anxious kid, I would definitely talk with them before moving about strategies, that you should expect it to take time, review the website to ID some groups to join. Encourage daily/weekly goals around pushing yourself to engage. It takes work.

This^^^ For first time, I had to map out social goals/expectations with my introverted kid for start of freshman year. They are 3K miles from home and knew nobody. Got lucky that their roommate is nice. But roommate hangs out with the one friend they know from home, so my kid hangs with them and is slowly building more groups of friends. But I'm glad my kid doesn't have anyone from home to cling to. Because while they started out anxious, they have started making more friends, while the roommate is still hanging mostly with the friend from home.

My DS is a freshman at University of Florida and he has no issues with making friends and dating on the first day. He brought his guitar to the dorm and played Justin Beiber's off my face; immediately he started attracting females. It is not that difficult.

It's nice that it was not difficult for him. That does not negate the experience of many people who do find it difficult.

I also went to the University of Florida and found it incredibly easy to make friends there. Everyone thrilled to be there, lots of school spirit.

Op I suggest rush, too. I have lifelong friends from my sorority. Or service clubs, political clubs, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone blossoms at different times. Don’t force her to become more assertive when she is not ready. If the SLAC would take her back, just move. I have one at a SLAC and another at a big one and I can tell with you 100% certainty that you don’t miss anything at SLAC and instead, the students there are more caring and kind.

Any poster that says something with 100% certainty is full of it. You have no idea, nor does anyone else, how the social environment is at different schools. Some SLACs can be very cliquish (think wealth disparities, not ethnically diverse, very Greek-centric, etc) and if a student doesn’t find their clan early, it can be a tough few years.

[Anonymous]

I don’t get why she missed all the orientation stuff. That’s when you bond with your roommate, hall-mates, and dorm. Why did she show up on a Friday and start classes on a Monday? That’s not the way it usually happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quiet low-key kids should go to LACs. We made the exact same mistake with our oldest. We knew he was anxious and overwhelmed and struggled to come out of his shell — but we sent him to the state flagship because it was perceived to be more prestigious than LACs within driving distance. He was immediately overwhelmed and became a loner and before long was ditching most of his classes. If you have no friends, you don’t even want to eat in the cafeteria because it’s so embarrassing to eat alone. If nobody invites you anywhere on a weekend, it’s embarrassing to even walk around the dorm, so you become a shut-in. Even the brightest kids spiral quickly.

This is my fear about DS - but he’s determined to ED to the state flagship. I think however it’s all about the luck of who is your roommate and who do you meet in your dorm, right ?

My DS grew up dreaming of going to the state flagship, we didn't even consider fit, it was just where he always dreamed of going Then he got in, so it was a no-brainer, right. But fit is very much a thing. And huge in-state universities have cliques and social hierarchy carrying over from high school, so if you were low in the totem pole in high school, that carries onto campus. It's not the 80s, where nobody knew anything about you and everyone was starting from scratch and clamoring to make all new friends.

This is nonsense. Large schools *allow* you to reinvent yourself, it that's what you desire. Large schools *allow* you to almost never see anyone you went to high school with. Sounds like you may be projecting just a tad.
DP

[Anonymous]

Just for a different perspective - I was a shy, introverted teen who attended a small LAC. I found it stifling and friend options very limiting, considering there were only so many students to begin with. I definitely did NOT find "my people" and transferred to our large state school starting sophomore year. The difference was like night and day - there were so many clubs and activities to join, lots of different "types," just so much more to do and be involved in. It was an astounding experience that I only wish I had known about from the start. I feel like I cheated myself out of freshman year, but hindsight is 20/20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get why she missed all the orientation stuff. That’s when you bond with your roommate, hall-mates, and dorm. Why did she show up on a Friday and start classes on a Monday? That’s not the way it usually happens.

At many large universities, yes that is how it's done. 1-2 days then the weekend and bam, classes.

[Anonymous]

It’s a bummer that if you don’t have a performance hobby (singing, instrument, sports) it’s a lot harder to meet people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a bummer that if you don’t have a performance hobby (singing, instrument, sports) it’s a lot harder to meet people.

Not really. You just meet people in your dorm, in classes, etc. My daughter signed up for several clubs just to meet people.